Our family's challenge to see what lessons come from living aboard a boat together.

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So as I mentioned before, Matt had been working on patching a ton of places on the roof of the boat in hopes of getting a handle on the leaks that we have. He has been applying a primer, layer after layer for about two weeks now. Then sanding edges and in the next few days he will paint over all the primer with a matching paint to our boat color. In a perfect world all the leaks will stop and we will live a gloriously dry happy little life in our boat. If only it were that easy.

I’m not one to carry on about the weather but when you are living on a boat that leaks it kind of happens naturally. I watch the ten day forecast like a hawk. With all of the warm sunny summer weather we have had the wood of our boat has dried out. This is all fine and normal, but when it rains it means more little cracks for water to enter. It seems that every August right about now, a little summer storm always rolls through the San Juan Islands. This year was no different.

We went to bed knowing that it was going to rain but I think we were both hopeful that all the patching would slow the water down and maybe make it a nonissue. Matt was less hopeful than I was mostly because he had been doing all the work and knew that he still had more to do before it was done. This ill-timed storm was not fitting into his boat work schedule. We were each hoping for a miracle. Point being, we didn’t do any prep.

At 4:30 in the morning it started raining hard. It sounded like marbles hitting the boat. So loud and so much water. It sounded close. Like on my pillow close. Sure enough, three leaks sprang above our bed. We were up. More leaks in the room and more than a few in the kitchen. In total I counted twenty-two leaks. We had towels and buckets and mason jars everywhere. It was a full time job. Jars filled quickly, towels needed moved, new drips came out of nowhere. I was so annoyed. I had this total little tantrum in my head over the whole thing. I was personally offended that it was raining. My bliss of sunny summer days on a boat came to a screeching halt and I was pissed.

What I did know that morning as I ran around for four hours in a less than a jovial mood managing buckets and towels was that we needed to declutter our boat again and get moving on projects for the winter. I spent the better part of the day cleaning out cabinets, closets and dressers. With colder temps and more moisture coming, it’s time to live with much less again. Everything is wet on the boat in the winter so there is a greater risk of items getting ruined with water or mold. It feels funny to have to live a different way for the winter months but it’s necessary.

I can honestly say that in retrospect, that day of being pissy over the rain was the kick in the shorts I needed to better understand exactly why we are choosing to live this way. It would have been so easy to let that become all consuming leading to negativity about so many aspects of our daily life. It would have been an easy path to self destruction and I would have had all the right stories to support why this didn’t work. I want this to work though. I like our life on this boat. I like the environment we live in and I actually thrive off of the physical challenges created by living on a boat. Living this way is definitely making me a stronger person…. and a little jealous of all you people with roofs that don’t leak.

We purchased this boat with the intention of saving money for three to five years to buy land on San Juan Island. We wanted five acres and a tiny house so that we could essentially homestead on the island. We underestimated how much we would enjoy living on a boat. I think we might be in this boat for the long haul.

Each time we stay overnight somewhere other than our boat, I miss being on the boat more and more. What I miss most is the closeness to the out of doors that we feel each day. When we stay in a house or hotel I have no idea what the sunrise or sunset looks like, how the stars were that night or what stage the moon is in. Even for one night, I miss it. I miss the fresh air. I miss feeling the boat move with the change of weather. I also miss that cozy feeling of our family hanging out in our small space.

Now when we talk about buying land, it’s more about starting a family farm to work on, but not live on. We talk about using the land to provide for our family but having our home on our boat. There is something so beautiful and unique about living on the water. I didn’t know how much it would influence our family when we made this choice. I didn’t know the profound impact it would have in relation to who we inherently are and the beauty in simplicity it has unlocked.

I know this journey has only begun. Hell, we haven’t even left the dock yet. Ha! In time, in time. With each new change in life, we grow a little more individually and as a family and this adventure is proving to be no different. It would be so easy to find negative things with how we are living, but why? Focusing on the positive of this experience has allowed us to have clarity on where we are headed and all of the beauty this path in life has in store.

I am grateful each day that the choices we have made in life have lead us to the opportunities we have. I truly believe that my eyes have only been opened up to this gratefulness because of the change we have made in our lifestyle. Simplicity has given me a sense of place and it has provided such a feeling of comfort. I am also only beginning to understand the true gift we are unintentionally giving our children and so eager to see what this next season of spring brings.

So many people have questioned why we moved to a boat. They worry about you two sweet little chickens. I am grateful people are worrying about you, but they could never worry more than me and Daddy.

“Will your girls be safe?”

“Where will they play?

“Will they have to sleep in their life jackets?”

“What if they fall in the water?

“What if, What if, What if”

In my heart I know we have made the right choice. We kept you both first in every conversation we had about the decision. You see though little loves, we’ve never lived on a boat before. We don’t know what to expect, but isn’t that the fun of it? Isn’t life about capturing the adventure that lies around the corner? Isn’t it about seeing the unknown before you and charging towards it with intention instead of retreating because of fear? We want you to see that different is okay. A life with daily challenges is good. It’s called living. We want to learn this new life with you.

You don’t have the yard to play in anymore, but you have clams and sea anemones to check on and ducks to watch and Popeye the seal to guard the waters around our boat at night. You have an ice cream shop a stones through from the boat and the park in town with swings is only a skip away. You have a million stars at night to see from our deck and blue herons that sound like coo coo clocks. You have otters that scared us to death the first time we heard them playing under our dock herding fish. You have over zealous sea gulls that hope you will drop your crackers. You imaginations run wild at night as we imagine the ocean floor below. (Minus the scary jelly fishes that we will NEVER bring up again.)

You have a new fancy “life coat” with a whistle that each of proudly blow as you march along the docks. You have a newfound confidence each time we let you walk a little further ahead without holding our hands. We are learning to trust you more and more. We are learning to communicate in a new way. We are learning to appreciate your independence. We are watching you grow in ways we never imagined.

Will you fall in the water? My bet is yes. Actually, I bet Daddy falls in first, then probably Charlie. You know what though? If you fall in, we will get you out and dry you off and kiss your cheeks and laugh with you or dry your tears. We will keep you as safe as we can but we can’t keep you in tiny little boxes your whole life. We will let you lean over the edge just a little to get your balance and see what lives under our dock. We will let you dip your toes in the water to see just.how.cold. the water is here. We will let you jump in if you want. This adventure is about living and learning together. You ladies will learn what you like and don’t like. I can’t tell you what that might be. We must discover it together.

I can’t even begin to tell you how amazed I am with the spirit of adventure you girls have about living on a boat. You are bursting with excitement. Your ability to embrace this change astounds me. Yes, Sissy, I know showers are scary. But you are brave and last night when the whole family was literally cheering for you the whole time you showered, you shined on through and persevered. You surprised yourself and couldn’t stop beaming and saying “I did it” when you were done. Victory!

Little ladies, I promise you, our boat will always be filled with love for you both. We will keep you safe and warm and we will learn and grow together on this adventure. We will have ups and downs and surprises but we will have each other and that’s really ultimately what matters the most.

When my husband and I met ten years ago on Orcas Island, we would spend a considerable amount of time dreaming of living alternatively. The thought of a house in a neighborhood bored us to tears. We wanted different, we wanted a little hardship in our living, and we wanted to physically work for what we had. The standard American way of living never looked that lovely to us. Don’t get me wrong, I drool over perfectly styled spaces. Historic homes will always tug at my heart. But let’s be real here for a sec, if you spend anymore than ten minutes with my husband and I, you will quickly realized quaint historic homes and styled nooks aren’t our gig.

Over the years, our goals and dreams have drifted everywhere from living in a bus, to a yurt, to a grain silo to a storage container and everywhere in between. We dreamed of a unique space that would allow us to be creative but also not be tied down financially to our home. We didn’t want a big, expensive, fancy house. We wanted simple. We never wanted to be owned by our possessions.

Then we had our first daughter and thought that all of our creative ways to live had to wait. We needed a proper house to raise our baby. We took out a thirty year mortgage and settled in with the rest of America in the burbs’ of Portland, Oregon. We put our true dreams on hold for what we thought we were supposed to have. But somehow, we never stopped sitting up at night drawing new ideas for tiny houses, dreaming up budgets to travel in a bus or scheming ways to live off of the grid.

We were trapped in suburbia and needed to bust the hell outta of there quick. There was no denying it. We didn’t belong.

Little girl #2 arrived and we started making an exit plan. Our path lead us to San Juan Island in Washington. We rented a house. A big house. The biggest house either of us had ever lived in. 2200sqft big. And we settled right in. But we didn’t feel settled. We didn’t need all of that space. We didn’t want to buy more things to fill that space either.

Bit by bit, we started to talk about what our next step would be. We talked about buying land and building our own tiny home (as in physically doing it ourselves). Honestly though, we have a two and a four year old and we are tired. We didn’t have time to build a house. We didn’t have the money to buy land. We didn’t want another loan and we didn’t want to be owned by our house.

And then one day it all became clear. We needed to simplify our life to get where we wanted to be. We really had everything we needed already. We didn’t need a big house and we didn’t need all our stuff. What we needed was a boat. Yes, we needed a boat to live on. This little family of four + one old lab needed a boat.

One might think, “oh wow, how fun, they must be experienced boaters”. Well think again sisters and brothers. My husband boated when he was little but that was recreationally. My family went canoeing once and only once. We spent a lot of time in the bushes along the river on that particular family trip. Boating is not in our blood. Okay, it is more in my husband’s blood than mine and he is handy and mechanically inclined. But still, you get the point. We are novices.

Everybody has their first day at being new at something though. So just like any good inexperienced boating family, we purchased a beautiful (yet very reasonably priced) 1954 50’ Chris Craft Catalina. She is an old wood boat and her name is Wild Rose. She is one of ten boats of her kind, and it seems only one of two still remaining in the world. She works like a charm and I know she has stories. We will only add to her stories. Every good adventure has a learning curve and this will prove no different. Here’s to the “Adventures of Wild Rose”.